Author's Note:
Warnings: Gore, dissociation, non-consensual body modification, torture. (It's back! XD)
11.
Sam falls asleep again, later, his body weirdly calm. The aching stopped a little over an hour after it began, and he and Cas reached the silent conclusion that Dean must be fine. (Sam prays to whatever's listening that he is. Because he can't...) Whatever crisis he was in the middle of must have been avoided. Sam knows what it feels like when Dean stops walking this earth. This wasn't like that.
When he wakes up, Cas is gone.
Sam feels the loss of his company like a physical wound. It's strange. But after all these endless days, having a familiar face was a relief he can't explain.
He's not as cold anymore, but his body still throbs dully and the memory of the fingers around his soul makes him curl in on himself and pull at his scalp in an effort to silence his thoughts.
They don't quiet. Only getting louder and louder, incessant and vicious in their ferocity.
Sam rolls over. He squeezes his eyes shut and eventually panics himself to sleep again. He wakes up, and food and water are sitting on a tray beside the door. He forces himself up to drink the water, but ignores the food, his stomach churning at the idea. It's been days since he last ate (he thinks it has, he doesn't know), but hunger pains have become a dull annoyance, not a pressing need. It's not the first time he's gone hungry in his life. It won't be the last.
Sam drags himself back to the bench. He lays down and stares at the wall. His head spins, his heart is heavy in his chest. He goes back to sleep.
Awake. Asleep. Awake, asleep. He drinks more water. Goes back to the welcoming black.
Unconsciousness serves as an escape, and he indulges in it greedily. It's tormented with nightmares, but that's nothing unusual. At least when he's in his head, he isn't here—isn't where Lucifer is physically—and that's better. Sometimes.
Sam goes back to sleep.
He stops thinking.
He exists in third person.
He's numb. Cold. Nothing.
He doesn't see Cas, but he hears him murmur Sam's name. A hand touches his forehead. Something is pressed into his hand. Someone else takes it away.
A part of him recognizes that he has to get up. He has to keep fighting. Has to find a way to escape. Can't leave Cas here. The rest of him is done. He can't keep this up. He can't spin in endless circles, waiting for the next time he's going to get caught and pinned. Lucifer grabbed him, his soul. He held it. He left a wet, black, filmy residue, and Sam can't ever get that clean.
He's been lying to himself for years.
You're dying inside, and you have been for a long time.
Sam squeezes his eyes shut. Thinking hurts. His head hurts. He doesn't want to breathe. Nothing has changed. He can still pick me apart and read everything. Nothing has changed, nothing changed, nothing, nothing, nothing—
He goes back to sleep.
000o000
Static, static, static.
Cas is screaming. The sort of noise you make when your lungs are being torn up through your throat. Ragged. Breathless. "Mercy, mercy—" he's gasping, blood spilling from his lips, down his face; pleading, praying, and nothing is stopping—
Black. Static.
Lucifer is watching from the edge of the room, eyes hard and arms folded across his chest. Despite his stoic appearance, Sam can tell he's enjoying this. How relaxed his shoulders are gives him away—
Static, static, static.
The blade lifts up. Cas struggles where he's bound to the table, but there's not enough leeway. Hands push down on his shoulders. Press against the base of his spine. The sword angles, another hand pulls up on Cas's wing—
Static.
The blade is halfway down, severing the limb from Cas's vessel's body—
Static.
Cas is sobbing—
Static.
There's blood everywhere, spilling from the open wounds, Cas's mouth—
Static. Pain.
Cas is screaming. Sobbing. Hoarse and mute. They keep cutting. Slicing. Tearing. Ripping. Like skinning a fish—
Staaatic.
Toni is holding one of the black red feathers with an impassive expression, fingering the edges carefully as if afraid it's going to cut her—
Staticstaticstaticstaticstaticstatic…
"Let's see…" Lucifer is murmuring, staring a pair of wings laying flat on a tabletop. The bloody stumps have been wrapped in white gauze to prevent blood from spilling all over everything. Static. A voice, whispered like a hiss, hand on the base of the wings, smeared with red; "Come fix it, Pops."
Static. Pain. Nothing. Black. Pain, pain, pain…
Sam jolts awake. He's gasping. He's soaked. The world is blurring around him at dizzying speed. He can't remember making the decision to sit up, but he's already staggering to his feet. His legs threaten to give out beneath him, whining at his urgency after days of inactivity. His head is pounding, the last dregs of the vision lingering.
Vision.
Vision.
Crap, crap, crap—
He doesn't care. (he cares. He cares. He cares. How can he not? It was over. It has been over. Only instances, brief and flickering, so little he could ignore it. It was done. Over. Completed. Concluded. After Lucifer, there was...) Cas. They're going to…to…
Mutilate. Butcher. Amputate.
He feels sick.
Sam stumbles toward the door, and rams his fist against it. The metal clangs beneath his fingers. He slams harder, desperate. He has to get someone's attention. Has to stop them. He can't let them perform the atrocity. He can't let Cas lose his wings. Can't, can't, can't…
He's shouting meaningless words. His voice is hoarse from disuse. It's not enough.
Cas.
No one is coming. Not fast enough. He needs to be louder. Has to stop this, now. Sam does the only thing he can think of: He starts screaming. A screeching sound from somewhere dark and quiet. It seems to stem up from his oily, rotting soul. Come get me. Come see why I sound like I'm dying. Just come!
The lock's start buzzing, clicking, and the relief that waters through him sends him tumbling. His knees ram into the hard, cold concrete—everything is cold—with enough force that he's vaguely concerned they're going to bruise.
The door is wrenched open, a man shouting obscenities fills up the doorway. "Bloody—! What are you going off about!?"
Sam pants, silencing. His throat is burning. He can't see straight or in less than twos. His arms fumble, but he manages to grab a handful of the man's white polo, yanking on him with enough force he strains buttons. "Take me to Castiel." His voice cracks. Hoarse. Ragged.
Like Cas's, pleading for mercy.
They cut him up anyway. Sword slicing the skin, bone...he's going to vomit.
The man stops struggling long enough to level Sam with a long look. "What?"
Sam splits his dry lips. His body feels a strange mixture of adrenaline filled and half a breath from collapsing. The lethargy that settled over him for days is gone, taken some time after they pulled the blade out in his vision. The memory of the premonition is enough to induce nausea, and Sam has to release the guard to press a hand against his mouth. It doesn't help. He dry heaves, spewing up some sort of filmy, watery, pink substance.
The man curses. His hand touches Sam's shoulder, and Sam jerks away, rearing violently. His fingers curl in, ready, but not to fight back. Don't—no. No.
He spits up something else. He's shaking. His headache feels like his brain is being flayed.
"What's wrong with you?" the Man of Letters demands. He's squatting next to Sam, looking slightly ill as he stares at the pink-ish liquid smeared across Sam's hands.
Sam laughs dully. How much time you got? He wipes at the edge of his mouth, fingers stiff and swollen. "Take me to Castiel," he repeats. His tongue feels strange. "Now."
"I can't just cart you around the facility—"
"I don't care!"
"Are you dying?" the man questions impatiently. "Because you're not allowed to cross paths if that isn't the case." Sam stares at him, incredulous. That's the only time they're going to permit them meeting again? If Sam is dying? His teeth grit together. His eyes flick up, and he realizes that he's staring at an open door, hallway free for his taking.
He's an idiot.
He makes a mad scramble for the open doorway, going something between all fours and his feet as he pushes himself out into the hall. The man makes a noise, grabbing for him, but his fingers only brush against Sam's ankle. The world makes a dizzying attempt to spin around him. Sam smacks into a wall, hard, and pushes himself off it only to be swarmed by vertigo.
No. Not now.
He should have eaten the weird oatmeal-looking thing. Food would have helped him function. He needs to function.
He fumbles on his feet, feeling like he's liquid being poured into a cup. Tipping and tipping. A hand grabs his bicep, stopping his descent. It's the same guard as before. Sam twists slightly, and sees that there's a black woman walking down the hall towards them.
No.
He has to get to Cas.
Sam swallows; his mouth tastes like acid. He doesn't know where the angel would even be. He's never been conscious when he left a room in the facility. Even now, looking down the halls, he doesn't know whether to go up or down it.
"Take me to Castiel." Sam's tone is bordering on a plea. He reaches out his free hand and grabs the man's wrist. His eyes feel wide and frantic. His fingers must be cold, because the man's warm skin beneath his own is painful in its intensity.
The guard shakes his head lightly, almost as if he's trying to make sense of a madman's ravings.
"Something bad's going to happen. I can stop it," he feels like he's attempting to explain nuclear physics to a first grader. "You have to let me stop it. Please. Let me—"
Jolting pain stops him mid-sentence. Sam releases a strangled sound, tumbling to his knees, limbs loose and locked all at once. The woman holding the taser on his left stares at him from her position above him, head slightly cocked.
Sam gasps, breathing heavily, but his tongue is lead in his mouth. It was only an attempt to make him let go, not incapacitate him. Painful, but not paralyzing. His limbs tremble.
"What is going on?" The woman demands of the first man, lifting her taser up like a gun in rest.
"As if I know!?" he gestures widely towards Sam. "He just started bloody screaming. He keeps demanding to see Castiel, though he won't say why."
"Did you ask?"
That gives the man momentary pause. "You know Lady Bevell wouldn't approve. It doesn't matter what reason he has for it. It's not like he's dying. The halo can't do anything for him. "
Sam paws weakly at his chest.
He can't move.
Get up. Cas needs you.
The woman makes a noise of disagreement. "He hasn't moved in days, and the first sign of activity he shows you ignore?"
"Well, I…"
She nudges Sam in the arm with the edge of her shoe. "Can you talk? What's the problem?" Sam's lips move. Nothing comes out. He tries again, and only ends with him drawing out a "C" in a long slur.
"Castiel." The man says. "That's all he's said."
"Well then, why don't you call his handler and see if something's wrong?" The woman demands impatiently. The man makes a noise and looks as though he's barely withstanding a roll of his eyes before he pulls out his phone and moving off. The woman squats down next to him, shoving the taser into a holster on her belt.
"Sorry 'bout that. You alright?"
Sam doesn't know whether to be confused or angry. He settles with glaring at her and lifting a shaking hand up slowly. She pushes it down onto his chest with little effort. Her eyes squint, gray filling with some apprehension and she cusses softly. "You look awful."
So?
Feeling spent, Sam pushes up on worn muscles until he's halfway upright. The taser, at least, seems to have cleared away some of the dizziness. It didn't help his headache, and he has to squint in order to see straight, but he'll take what wins he can.
The woman puts a hand on his shoulder in a way he thinks she means to be supporting. It only causes his skin to jump beneath her fingers. He draws up, muscles tight.
He doesn't know how long they stay here, but it feels like a while. He wants to get up, needs to, can feel an exigency pushing at him. But he can't move. He just sits there, like dead weight.
The man comes back from where he'd wandered down the hall, pocketing his phone. His expression is blank. "I'm afraid that we won't be able to help you. I've been instructed to return you to your cell."
Sam's teeth grit together.
The woman looks slightly suspicious. "Why?"
"I'm not at liberty to say."
Ha. Cute.
Sam turns to the woman, trying to appeal to her sympathy. She's the first person he's seen in here that isn't callous. "He needs me. I have to do something."
The sound of his screaming...it's like an echo, haunting him. A death shroud; a banshee. Premonition. Vision. Everything. Nothing. They were supposed to be over. Most of the visions he's ever had have been used to manipulate him. After Lucifer finished pretending to be God, Sam had assumed it was over.
And...no. No.
(He wants to go back to sleep.)
The woman releases a heavy sigh. She looks up at the guard. "Help me get him up."
"What!?"
"You heard what I said."
"I..."
"Now."
The man rocks on his heals, face twisted, hands clenched. But with obvious reluctance, he reaches down and yanks Sam up to his feet. Sam sways, but between the two Brits, they manage to keep him upright. He thinks this is supposed to be a triumph, but it only feels like a defeat. Sam allows himself to be strung between the two, focusing on keeping himself from dumping his entire weight on them. He locks his knees, ignoring a muttered comment from the man about his body temperature being freezing.
He hobbles forward on bare feet, inch by agonizing inch. His limbs ache. He wants to sleep.
He feels hungry, but too nauseous to contemplate seriously eating anything. The sound of Cas's agony rings through his head on a loop. Over and over. Endless. He wants to slam his hands over his ears, as if it will actually help muffle the sound.
Sam makes a mental map as they walk, trying to keep track of where they are in case an opportunity arrives that he can leave. He doesn't expect there to be. But he tries to hope. Nothing has presented itself thus far, but he hasn't been in the mindset to exactly be trying to plan anything out. It's just…
Excuses. Excuse after excuse.
Sam presses his lips together. He hazes in and out, focusing on his feet and the concrete they're passing. The three of them don't encounter any more Men of Letters, and this doesn't instill him with confidence. A facility this big should be swarming with people, but it's empty. Like an abandoned warehouse.
Warehouse. Abandoned...What is this place? The Bunker is mostly lined with metal and concrete, but this seems like it's some sort of re-used WWll bunker. Maybe this is just a holding area, but it hardly offers the warmth of the Bunker. Or the smells he's come to tentatively associate with it. Ginger and bleach sting his nostrils.
"Up ahead is where Lady Bevell said they'd had Castiel," the man murmurs. Sam lifts his head, staring down the hall. There's two doors on either side, and a dead end. Sam hasn't seen a window in days. (Weeks? How long has it been? Not longer than a month. He doesn't know. His ability to tell time has been skewed since Gadreel. The Cage. Demon blood, maybe.)
Sam pulls his lips against his teeth, apprehension bubbling in his stomach.
The door approaches, and the sense of wrong continues to grow. Cas, please, please be okay. He has to have made it in time. Please, God, let me have made it in time.
After flashing some sort of card, the man opens the door. Sam pushes away from him so he can stand on his own trembling feet. He's breathing heavily, like he's been running. His stomach is twisted in so many knots he feels like he's eaten something poisonous.
The room smells like blood. Thick, rolling rivers of it. There's an overlaying chemical smell in the air as well, most prominently bleach. The scent is enough to make him gag.
He tears his gaze across the space, looking desperately for Cas. For the table he was pinned to. The Men of Letters holding him down while his wings were chopped off. Why would they do that? Why would they ground him? Why take them? Why?
The room is not bustling with people. Sam sees the table from his vision and raises his left hand up to his mouth, biting on the back of his hand. It's bathed in old blood, an hour old at least. An attempt to mop it has been made, but it's obvious that a make-shift surgery, if not a murder, happened there.
Oh, God…
No.
He didn't.
No.
It.
No.
Cas.
Sam feels his lips press together, tense, release. This happened. It happened. It happened. The floor is clean. In the span of things, it's such a useless, unimportant detail, but it catches his attention and holds it. The floor shouldn't be clean. If something like this happens, evidence of it should be everywhere. Staining it. Tainting it. Haunting it.
Cas.
Sam eyes land on the lone figure in the room, standing in front of a large table. Two weighted lumps sit there. Black red feathers. Cas's wings.
Lucifer's turned to face the doorway, head cocked in that stupid bird gesture. Curious and annoyed.
And for the first time in days, Sam feels something other than terror. Apathy. Nothing. His skin prickles. This is, he thinks, anger. Rage.
You did this. I know what you can do, and you did this. It wasn't Toni's idea. It wasn't the Men of Letters. This was all him.
"Sam." Lucifer says calmly.
"You…" Sam breathes, pulling his hand away. His fingers tighten until his knuckles are white. Tense. Painful. "How could you…?"
Lucifer jerks his head to the left, and Sam flinches, drawing up straighter. He hears the sound of bone snapping behind him. The two Men of Letters who walked in with him crumple to the floor, necks snapped. More blood spills.
It's everywhere. In him. On him.
"I wonder," Lucifer murmurs, resting a hand on one of Cas's wings, turning away from him for a moment to stare at the feathers. "How it is you learned of this. I told them to keep it quiet."
"Psychopath."
A faint grin stretches up the archangel's vessel's lips. It's not for mirth. Not for laughter. He feels cold all over again. Freezing. Broken. He wants to crumple and give in. Sleep until he rots. "Don't blame me for this. I did what I had to. Though I didn't want to," Lucifer strokes one of the feathers. His hands draw away cut, bleeding faintly until they heal over with a faint hum of grace.
The feathers are sharp.
He didn't know that.
He didn't know that angel wings could be removed.
He feels the sudden, deep urge to mourn. Howl. Something precious has been lost, and there's nothing Sam can do. It's over. He lost. Again. He's too late. Always too late. He can't…
Cas.
Cas.
"You didn't have to do anything. You chose this. Why would you choose this!?"
Lucifer snorts darkly. His eyes are pained. Not for Cas. Not for anyone. Just himself. "I have to get his attention. If I have to get louder, I'll get louder. He's gotta hear me, Sammy. I'm gonna make him hear me."
Sam struggles for a moment, trying to comprehend. Not sure if he wants to. "Who? Wait—Chuck?"
"Do you know how many times he's come running to put Castiel back together again?" Lucifer's voice is rising. Real anger. He's not playing with Sam. his soul aches dully in a phantom pain of the last time Lucifer's temper exploded. "I atomized him, and Pop did something. You took him from me Sam. I'm just taking something back."
Horrified isn't even close to what he's feeling.
"You did this to Cas…" he can't say it. It's on the tip of his tongue Because of us. Because of me. It wasn't enough. It's never enough. Nothing ever satisfies him. Sam's gaze flicks to the table. The image of Lucifer standing there, gleeful, makes him sick. He watched. He did nothing.
Cas begged.
Sam begged.
And he laughed. Smiled. Because nothing's quite as enjoyable as watching blood smear down from intestines. Like making someone watch their organs get removed then put back together like a puzzle.
There's a gun laying on a nearby counter, among various other weapons and surgical equipment. All meaningless against archangels, but Sam doesn't care. He makes a mad dive for the gun and his swollen fingers wrap around it. Lucifer starts to move in the corner of his eye, mouth open to say something. Sam twists around, one hand wrapped around the edge of the counter to keep himself upright.
Sam takes unsteady aim at center mass and fires. The bullet is oddly reflective. He'd say golden if he didn't know better.
He expects Lucifer to jolt back slightly, and give Sam an annoyed, but exasperated look. That doesn't happen. The bullet slams into his chest and Lucifer stops. His eyes flare red for a moment before real, raw agony flashes across his face.
He crumples. He screams.
He falls to his knees, hands pressed against his vessel's chest, pawing as if trying to claw his way inside of the skin. Sincere, real pain. He sounds like he's dying. Through gasping breaths, his eyes look hazily for Sam, and he hisses his name like a snake.
Sam looks at the gun. He remembers Cas talking about the bullets made from holy fire. The infected skin. The way he couldn't even stand properly, listing to one side in an effort to try and keep the pain at bay. The gun is heavy in his hands. Cold. He looks up at the archangel, bowed before him. Agonized.
Sam takes unsteady aim.
He fires again.
Author's Note:
Prompt: Crying.